Is God Just?

One of the common objections to God is this one: "God's sentencing of the imperfect humans to an eternity in hell for a mere mortal lifetime of sin is infinitely unjust." I have to be honest. For a long time, that one bothered me, too. I was told the standard fare. I knew "All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God." I knew "The wages of sin is death." Fine. But ... why? I mean, when I transgressed my parents' rules, they didn't kill me. The wages of violating normal rules around my house was variable, but never death. So why death?

The first problem in my thinking was the temporal limitations. The phrase "an eternity in hell for a mere mortal lifetime" suggests that the time of the offense should determine the time frame of the payment. Now, we know at the start that this is nonsense. It would be like suggesting that a person can only spend as much time in jail as it took them to commit the crime. "Hey, that robbery only took me half an hour to plan and execute." "Okay, you will spend the next half hour in jail." Ridiculous! No, the time frame of the payment isn't determined by the time frame of the offense, but the severity of the offense. A drunk driving offense isn't as bad as an armed robbery offense, which, in turn, isn't as bad as a murder offense. Each offense has a time frame of payment that correlates to its seriousness, not the time it took to commit it.

The second problem in my thinking followed from the first. If it is the seriousness of the offense, exactly how serious was the offense? Well, transgressing, for instance, my parents' command to get home before midnight clearly wasn't the same as transgressing, say, the federal law against murder. What I tend to do, however, is to equate human violations to divine violations, as if my parents' commands are equal to federal law. In truth, for the creature to violate the Creator is vastly larger than any human transgression.

The third problem in my thinking was the companion of the second. The nature of the violation determines the nature of the payment. But disobeying my parents is not the same as disobeying God. When we examine the nature of the violation, it exceeds "petty crimes" and spans to a much larger transgression. Given that this is the creature defying the Creator, what we have is Cosmic Treason. I have set aside the rightful commands of the Creator and said, "No! I will be my own god!" I have overthrown the rightful government of my life.

Putting these together, I finally found the thinking processes I had been missing. In any normal country with any normal rules, the common penalty for treason is death. Given that the "country" that is violated, the "government" against which my treason was committed is an infinite, perfect, right government, it is reasonable that the violation merits eternal death. Treason against a country merits physical death. Cosmic Treason against the Most High merits spiritual death. Finally I see that "God's sentencing of the imperfect humans to an eternity in hell for a mere mortal lifetime of sin is perfectly just."